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What quiz show is still tops after 4 years
Manila Standard (page 58), Thursday, June 6, 1996 Quizmaster David Celdran DOZENS of different game show formats have been tried on Philippine television. After all, they are actually cheaper to produce, despite the prizes they give away. Throw in a couple of contestants, a limited production crew, a minimalist set with a lot of sequins, plus a moderator with a lot of teeth, and the audience will do the rest. Then came the phenomenon of the quiz show... a format which earned top ratings for a lunchtime program as a guy named Bong Barrameda zoomed to national celebrity status after being declared its undefeated champion throughout an entire season. Other quiz shows took root, but none of them captured the fancy of Philippine televiewers quite s much as the original. Not until Uniwide Sales and Focal Media Arts launched Battle of the Brains. Now on its fourth year, the show has become synonymous with educational television even as it continues to reap praises from various sectors. Initially aimed at Metro Manila audiences, Battle of the Brains earned highly positive responses from Channel 9 viewers and eventually, from well-respected critics, forcing the show to go nationwide. Quizmaster David Celdran, a former campus leader at the University of the Philippines, recently claimed in a radio interview that nobody expected the show to do so well. But that in itself was an understatement. Not only has the program been cited as Best Game Show at the PMPC Star Awards -- Celdran himself has been named Best Game Show Host three years in a raw! Just recently, Battle of the Brains was also conferred the Lorenzo Ruiz Award for Television Entertainment by the Catholic Mass Media Awards for "inspiring its youthful audience to strive for excellence in school and in everything they do." While daytime soap operas have built a solid following, Battle of the Brains continues to attract televiewers from all walks of life. It succeeds in playing the emotions of both contestants and viewers. That perhaps is the key to its success -- the emotional capacity of audiences to identify with the contestants and their ups and downs. As one participant states: "It's not whether you win or lose that counts...but the thrill of wiping out the competition!" And unlike the soaps which go well with commercials suggesting remedies for the common cold, Battle of the Brains has become such a byword among sponsors and consumers. Prizes have thus become heftier and more attractive to participants. Now aired every Saturday from 1:30 - 3 p.m. over RPN 9, the show has over P40,000 at stake every week, and a staggering P1.4 million total in prizes for grand finalists, their coaches and respective schools. This has prompted observers to note that "greed, or at least the desire to experience financial reward, however vicariously, is at the root of the game format." Indeed, audiences often cannot help playing along and trying to outguess the contestants. There is also this story about a professor who brought a TV set to class and treated his students to an episode of Battle of the Brains. In the beginning, things were rather quiet, but as the show progresses, more began to participate. Toward the end, everyone was yelling directly at the contestants. Definitely, the pa-intellectual mood of the show is infectious. After all, the Philippines is a country where there is a high premium on education. And as the ultimate tribute to the success of Battle of the Brains , even a gag show on a rival TV station has taken to spoofing popular celebrities on a program segments called "Battle of the Brainless."